


A New Donald

by guidebook



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Android Donald, Gen, Implied Character Death, More tags and characters to be added on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-26 22:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20749682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guidebook/pseuds/guidebook
Summary: Short fics of Android Donald. Not in chronological order.





	1. Not the Same

**Author's Note:**

> I’m bad at coming up with titles. Anyway, I love Android Donald. This doesn’t necessarily mention a time but probably some time after Moonvasion. Guess some info would be that Donald takes on the Duck Avenger, and he goes on a “vacation” which ends horribly for him. He gets help from One, and is back, though.

When Donald looks in the mirror, he’s doesn’t see himself. He sees a machine, a fake, a poser. He sees synthetic feathers white as white can be. He sees blue eyes staring straight back at him, and in them, he sees loss and he sees fear. (Actually, he sees no emotion in them, but he wants to believe they are still capable of experiencing emotions.)

One had assured him multiple times that he was going to be fine. That no one would be able to tell the difference between this version of him, and the older one. It did little to calm him down, but he wouldn’t admit that to One.

His friend had been right, though. When he finally got back home to his family, they couldn’t tell the difference. His voice was as hard to understand as it has always been. His feathers were still soft (but they were fake). His beak moved in a more or less natural way when he spoke, but if anyone had noticed, no one said anything. The family was more than happy to see Donald again, and none of them asked him about his trip, too busy talking about their own adventures.

When he goes back into the houseboat, in the bathroom, he stares in the mirror. He had recently found out that his sister can’t look in them anymore. She fears seeing someone that she’s grown afraid of. Donald starts to think that the same thing might happen to him. He hates seeing his reflection, it only reminded him of what he wasn’t.

He doesn’t complain, though. He simply goes to bed, and stares at the ceiling. Nothing has changed, but at the same time, everything has.


	2. Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donald loses a sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a part that says “pleasure” then the next sentence says “physical versions” so I would like to say that these do not have any sexual implication. Thank you.

When Donald remembers that he doesn’t need to worry about breathing anymore, he has a little more fun during contests to see who can hold their breath the longest. He makes sure his record is the longest, but also reasonable and not suspicious. When Donald realizes that he can’t feel pain anymore, he starts being more reckless, careless. He starts letting things happen.

The villains are allowed to get close, and their guns are allowed to graze just a little bit of his arm. He doesn’t care about how fast he cuts the vegetables, or whether or not the hammer he uses to fix the houseboat actually hits his fingers. He feels nothing when something that’s supposed to be painful happens to him.

But sometimes he misses it. The stubbed toe, the papercuts, the throbbing headache when he falls face first on the ground, the cuts and bruises that his enemy’s weapons leave.

Well, maybe he doesn’t miss the pain. He simply misses the feeling, he misses _ feeling _. The android experience doesn’t exactly allow him to feel anything. Not pain nor pleasure. At least not the physical versions of these, and that’s what he misses. When something happens to him, he almost never reacts because he doesn’t always register it when it occurs. It gets people suspicious, when something hot lands on him, or when he gets hurt, and he offers no reaction.

So when he’s watching tv with the kids, he doesn’t notice when Webby grabs his hand and examines it. She glances at him in between fingers, and she even tries to pinch his palm. She stares up at him, and he stares at the television. Frowning, she puts his hand back on the couch beside him, and scoots over to Huey, who sits to her left.

He notices the whispering, though. He can pick up on small noises, sudden movements. He hears Webby’s hushed voice, not exactly what she’s saying, just the sound of her speaking. Sneaking a glance at the kids, he finds them staring at him. They look away when they realize they’ve been caught. With hands on their laps and eyes trying to stay at the tv, they try to ignore him.

So he lifts his hand, and he holds it with his other. He intertwines his fingers with each other, and he rubs his palms with his thumbs. Then he puts his hands on his lap, one on each respective leg.

He misses feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to try to update this daily, even if the chapters are short! Thanks for reading!


	3. Secret? What Secret?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are out of the manor, and Webby wants to know what Donald is hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I was going to update this daily and then I didn’t. School took over, but I’m going to make up for the days I missed this weekend.

“I’m very good at keeping secrets,” she whispers. She wraps the blanket tighter around her. “You can trust me with whatever it is that you’re keeping.”

Donald smiles at her, but then he stares at the television. He pretends that it’s turned on, and that an episode of Ottoman Empire is playing. His reflection stares back at him instead. “What makes you think I’m keeping a secret?”

“You’re very obvious.”

“Or you’re just very observant because literally no one else noticed.”

“_ Ah hah _ ! So you _ are _ keeping a secret!” Webby shouts, immediately throwing her blanket to the side and getting up from her spot on the couch, and standing in front of Donald. She’s got her hands clasped together, and stares up at him eagerly. “What is it?!”

He’s shocked, surprised that she had tricked him into revealing that he does, in fact, have a secret. But he snorts, he grins and shakes his head, staring back at her. “So what if I have a secret? Secrets aren’t meant to be said, so tell me, why should I tell you?”

“Like I said, I’m good at keeping secrets!” She reminds him. Then she pulls her hands apart, making on into a fist, except her pinky is out and stretched out towards Donald. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. Pinky promise.”

Donald frowns a little. He blinks, and when his eyes open again, the kid standing before him is still Webby. For a moment, he thinks of Dewey, and how he used to make Donald pinky promise a lot of things. Like the time Donald said that if Dewey passed his math test, he’d get him and his brothers ice cream. Or like the time Donald said he’d let Dewey stay up late on his birthday. Dewey always wanted to make sure Donald kept his word, so he used to make him pinky promise. Then he got ”too old” for pinky promises, and Donald missed them.

“Uncle Donald? Are you okay?”

He blinks again. When his eyes open, he sees Webby, except this time she looks worried. She’s got both of her hands to her chest, nervously pulling at her shirt. “I’m...I’m fine, Webby.”

She nods, slowly, and he’s not sure she believes him. “Well, you don’t have to tell me anything. But just know that if you ever change your mind, you _ can _ tell me your secret.”

“Okay.”

He leaves it at that. She’s smiling again, and it’s contagious. And for a moment, he thinks he should trust her, but then they hear shouting and laughing, and the boys are home. So she runs off to go find them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t ask about the blanket. Originally, it was night and Webby and Donald were hanging out in the living room for some reason, but then I changed my mind. Also, I want Donald and Webby to bond.


	4. Eavesdropping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immediately, she pulled out her notebook, opening it to the next blank page and preparing herself to write down any new information she was about to hear.
> 
> “...Maybe I should just tell them.”

Webby made a new board, all centered around Donald and her theories on what his secret could possibly be. She kept it hidden, covering it up every time anyone came into her room.

She snuck around the manor whenever Donald came inside. She went as far as crawling through vents and using one of Gyro’s many hearing enhancement inventions. With her luck, she was able to gather very little. Her only leads were that he never seemed to eat with them anymore, and his reactions to pain were never instant. It didn’t give her much to go on, and her recent theory was that something must have happened to him on the moon. It was beginning to frustrate her.

Then one day, when the boys tagged along with Della on a top secret “mission,” Webby followed Donald as he was going into the houseboat. She somersaulted across the sodden bridge, and then pressed her back to the wall right outside the open door. After a quick peek inside, and making sure that it was clear, she tiptoed down the stairs. She found Donald with his back to her, one hand on the table and the other holding his phone to his ear. Immediately, she pulled out her notebook, opening it to the next blank page and preparing herself to write down any new information she was about to hear.

“_ ...Maybe I should just tell them _.”

“_ One of them is already suspecting that I’m hiding something _.”

“_ They have a right to know. I just don’t want them to be hurt by it. _”

“_ No, One, none of them have noticed, but just how much longer do you think it’ll be until they do? I don’t want them to find out that I’ve been reduced to nothing but a machine without it coming from me directly. _”

Her pen dropped, and she didn’t think twice about it. She didn’t think of picking it up before she pushed herself up onto her feet, and raced out of the houseboat only seconds after it dropped. She didn’t think about a lot of things. Not about her pen, not about Donald and whether or not he heard it or saw her. Not about why, for whatever reason, Della and the boys were back so soon. She didn’t even give them a second of her time when they asked her if she was okay.

Webby could only think about how she needed to be back in her room, in her bed, and trying to forget the last twenty minutes because she begins to feel like she’s violated too much of Donald’s privacy. And she does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t succeed in forgetting.


	5. Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> are you happy right now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t come up with summaries so

People say that twins have a special connection. Something beyond, something _ phenomenal _. That they’re able to feel each other’s pain, and happiness, and that they know each other’s thoughts.

Della was always interested in these kinds of theories. Donald, not so much. He thought they were fake, and nothing more than just stories to tell kids. That didn’t stop Della from believing that she and Donald were just like that. Sometimes she really did experience things with her brother despite it only physically happening to him. Other times, she’s watch something happen to him and joke that she felt it or thought it too. She made a game out of it, to see how long it would take Donald to get mad about her constant “_ we’re twins! we share each other’s feelings and thoughts! _”

As she grew older, though, this began to fade out and she forgot about it. It was in the back of her mind, and she rolled her eyes whenever someone tried to talk about special bonds between siblings. It came back after she took the Spear of Selene, though. When she was stuck on the moon, she would sometimes feel a sudden bit of happiness even though things weren’t going her way. She’d hold her hand above her heart, and she’d stare at the photo of her family whenever it happened. When her eyes would land on Donald, she’d wonder, _ are you happy right now? _ But there would be no answer, just the pain that came at her every time she thought of her family.

When she and the kids found Donald deserted on an island, she knew then and there that there was no connection.

But when Donald went on a random vacation, a couple of months after the Moonvasion, she started to think about _ it _ again. Only two days after he left, sometime after midnight, she woke up to sudden pain. Her body was hurting all over, and she felt as if she could move. She felt like screaming, calling for help, but when she opened her beak, nothing came out. Then it ended after what felt like _ ages _. It stopped, suddenly, and she was able to catch her breath.

Della sat up in her bed, breathing heavily as she looked around her room. The only light came from her phone, it had lit up at some point with some notification. She stared at it for a moment, then to the other side of her bed. When she saw that Penumbra was still there, safe and sound and asleep, she relaxed.

She lay back down, pressing herself as close as possible to her partner. She thought about what had happened, and wondered _ why _, and if Donald experienced the same thing. And she wondered, that if he hadn’t experienced it, if he would’ve taken half of the pain, and shared it with her if she had asked him to. She thinks about calling him, in the dead of night.

Instead, she falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied dellumbra? in my donald fic? yeah.


End file.
